A SIGN OF THE VILLAGE – Here’s a familiar sign on Route 6A. Some remember that Dave McKenna used to play the grand piano here.

Prized location maintains weekend hours

When news came from Boston recently that Anthony’s Pier Four restaurant will close this summer, it was easy to think about its sister on the Barnstable-Yarmouth line, Anthony’s Cummaquid Inn. While the famed Boston dining room is being demolished to make way for a development project, the local restaurant is still serving Lobster A La Hawthorne and popovers Fridays and Saturdays from 4 to 9 p.m. and Sundays from 3 to 9 p.m.

The inn’s location between the Old King’s Highway and Cape Cod Bay has made the property a destination since before it was purchased by the Athanas family.

Radio personality Don McKeag was married at the inn in 1969 when it was owned by Joe and Betty Curtis, “two of the nicest people,” he said. Yarmouth town records show that they sold the inn, built in 1910, in December 1975.

“Dave McKenna used to play in the lounge,” McKeag recalled, of the cocktail hour, “and then they’d move him into the dining room as the evening progressed.”

McKeag said McKenna gave more concerts in Carnegie Hall “than any other piano player” and that McKenna, at the age of 19, was the last pianist to travel with Art Tatum, one of the geniuses of the twentieth-century keyboard.

“Art Tatum said that Dave McKenna was ‘the only piano player that I’d pay to hear,’” McKeag said. He recalled that in the 1980s movie 10 there was a shot of some record albums and one of them was McKenna’s.

The pianist, from Woonsocket, RI, was well known not only for his music (by the way, he was left-handed, which may have contributed to his distinctive style), but also for his introversion and his love of Italian food and of baseball.

In fact, said McKeag, he knew of one time when McKenna played in New York City at the same time that Frank Sinatra did. Sinatra, according to the story, invited McKenna to meet him for drinks, but McKenna turned him down in favor of a ballgame on TV.

McKeag said that McKenna’s favorite pianist was Nat King Cole. He said that he could remember times when Broadway star John Raitt and daughter Bonnie sang with McKenna. McKeag is writing a memoir that will include a whole section on McKenna.

Phone requests to the restaurant for comment were not returned by press time. According to the Anthony’s website, the Cummaquid restaurant serves lobsters “caught by Anthony’s very own lobster company.” Its lobster bisque has been “served at three presidential inaugurations,” says its menu.

Town Councilor Ann Canedy has a special memory of the place before the Athaneses bought it. She said her father considered purchasing it for use as a fancy bed and breakfast. She and her family used to stop in to have roast beef on Christmas Eve before a late-night church service.

The restaurant’s website is anthonyscummaquid.com and its phone number is 508-362-4501.